@nsigma - what I was bitching about was the 'settings' UI. There's hardly anything to configure there. I can't make any real changes to the UI (fonts, DPI, gui tweeks, etc.) and worse (IMHO) look at the User config. No advanced button to manage groups, home, encrypted home, quotas. Pretty much no admin functionality. IHMO: totally noobs and folks with moderate experience should be able to be up-and-running in a minimal amount of time without needed to resort to web-searches or punting and simply editing the plain-text files.

@nsigma - what I was bitching about was the 'settings' UI. There's hardly anything to configure there. I can't make any real changes to the UI (fonts, DPI, gui tweeks, etc.) and worse (IMHO) look at the User config. No advanced button to manage groups, home, encrypted home, quotas. Pretty much no admin functionality. IHMO: totally noobs and folks with moderate experience should be able to be up-and-running in a minimal amount of time without needed to resort to web-searches or punting and simply editing the plain-text files.

Bearing in mind the target audience, I fail to see how you equate advanced user management with the need for noobs and those with moderate experience to be up-and-running quickly. Reducing the settings UI to the basic functions most people are likely to need is a good thing in my opinion, and it's not just Ubuntu making this sort of move. Advanced user management is hardly needed by the average user, and there's a one-click install GUI or the CLI tools for those likely to - which is primarily enterprise usage, no? The one thing perhaps missing is support for an encrypted home folder for new users (though you can easily set one on install for the primary user).

Similarly, I don't understand the desire for so much UI tweaking. The three things I wanted to do - change launcher icon size, set the launcher to auto-hide and change the desktop background (love the way the UI colours change to match the background!) are all immediately accessible. That's more changes than the vast majority of your average Windows user makes! And MyUnity is again a one-click install for those who want more control, which apart from around here I'd guess is a small minority.

I don't understand your desire to change icon size, auto-hide things, or change backgrounds. You need to get out of your old way of thinking and stop endlessly tweaking things and get used to the way things are.

I don't understand your desire to change icon size, auto-hide things, or change backgrounds. You need to get out of your old way of thinking and stop endlessly tweaking things and get used to the way things are.

Annoying, isn't it?

LOL, no! You slightly missed my point, though I should have been more explicit I meant OOTB. I think the UI shows Canonical have done proper research on what the majority might want to change, and left everything else out by default (it's still there for power users) Design for the majority! You really think a dialog with hundreds of options is better UI design?

Canonical's "research" is a farrago of confirmation biases to reinforce what the gnome designers wanted in the first place. I have alternatives, I've chosen them, so I'm really no longer interested in challenging the epistemic closure of the gnome developers. Let them do their own thing, let them sink or swim.

All OSes are pretty good these days. It's not like the bad old days of Windows ME :-) (Remember that one?)

Ubuntu floats my boat - that 10 second boot time is so nice. But there's lots of nice stuff in Vista too.

It's like coke: you drink it how it comes out of the bottle. Most people don't complain. But give people a choice and they get picky and opinionated. Like coffee, black, sugar, dark roast, cappucchino. Out of the hundred ways of making coffee, everyone manages to have only one or two ways they actually like. So if there were less operating systems, people would be happier with the OS they have. And if the OS offered fewer look and feel tweaks, people would spend less wasted hours tweaking the number of pixels between the X button and window bezel.

All OSes are pretty good these days. It's not like the bad old days of Windows ME :-) (Remember that one?)

Ubuntu floats my boat - that 10 second boot time is so nice. But there's lots of nice stuff in Vista too.

It's like coke: you drink it how it comes out of the bottle. Most people don't complain. But give people a choice and they get picky and opinionated. Like coffee, black, sugar, dark roast, cappucchino. Out of the hundred ways of making coffee, everyone manages to have only one or two ways they actually like. So if there were less operating systems, people would be happier with the OS they have. And if the OS offered fewer look and feel tweaks, people would spend less wasted hours tweaking the number of pixels between the X button and window bezel.

Yeah it's a pretty well-known effect called a Choice Paradox. I'd prefer to have it.

I'm not anti-choice or advocating for some Apple-esque lock down, just don't think you need to confuse the majority with choices only required by the minority, as long as they're available somehow. Recently had to hack the GTK theme files (to work around a Java bug I hasten to add) and glad that it's actually possible.

Interesting article here on Wordpress - http://wordpress.org/about/philosophy/ - chosen because it's not about an OS but illustrates the point well. Also chosen because I dislike Wordpress a lot, but I know a lot of people like it, often for the reasons on this page. And all of us around here should remember we're part of the 1%!

Canonical's "research" is a farrago of confirmation biases to reinforce what the gnome designers wanted in the first place.

Apart from obviously unity != gnome (at least the parts I was talking about), I'd generally agree with you in that most product research has a tendency to reinforce existing biases. I don't think it negates the process entirely, though, and I think the UI research Canonical has done as part of Ayatana has been a step forward (if minor) in UI development on Linux.

Note: page 13 of this thread and the only nod to OS's is that reliability is pretty much driver dependent. Everything else is user space programs.

You'll have to wait until at least page 42 for that. But we have discussed the evilness of Monsanto, and that has an O and an S in it. This will soon turn into a discussion on life, the universe and everything. Thanks for all the fish.

Note: page 13 of this thread and the only nod to OS's is that reliability is pretty much driver dependent. Everything else is user space programs.

You'll have to wait until at least page 42 for that. But we have discussed the evilness of Monsanto, and that has an O and an S in it. This will soon turn into a discussion on life, the universe and everything. Thanks for all the fish.

On Ubuntu 12.04, search "Google Chrome" find Chromium (which is the base of Chrome, sans Google tracking - think they get enough information about me as is!), install. Or download .deb from Google, click to open in software centre, install.

As Mint shares the same basic repos as Ubuntu, I'm surprised if they've managed to make it that much harder. If they've got it set to open .deb files in the archive manager by default and don't offer the option to open in a package manager (GDebi at least) that sounds like a massive fail!

I like the idea of Linux Mint, just not all the faffing. GDebi should be installed and hooked up to install stuff seamlessly.

There, fixed that for you!

Actually, my old version of Mint worked fine with GDebi - like I said, big fail if it's not. One of the reasons I switched back to Ubuntu - too many stupid niggles and bugs in Mint, despite the outward sheen.

Current Ubuntu is as easy to do this as I mentioned in my previous post - specifically checked.

Installed GDebi.Right click 'google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb' Open With GDebi Package Installer..."Error! Could not open 'google-chrome-stable_current_i386.deb" The package might be corrupted or you are not allowed to open the file: please check the permissions of the file.

[ot]Bestest thread ever!! I just red the whole thread starting from the beginning. Even followed some of the links and red those posts too. Great !

Now I just have to make up for the lost hours somehow

Keep it up![/ot]

Started with win 3.11, currently win7, don't like any unix/linux I have used in my life. Mac, don't like the gui and the pricetag.Don't want shortcuts, don't want commandline. Boot time is irrelevant, pc is up 24/7. BSOD, cannot remember when I last saw one. Hangs and crashes and lags in program running all seem to me like some mythical beings from Tolkien stories.I know a few mac users and when they tell me that mac is more stable and reliable, I do undestand the words, but I cannot comprehend the meaning. I mean, when something works perfectly how can there be something better ?So currently, I see no need to switch or to even look at any other OS.

“The First Rule of Program Optimization: Don't do it. The Second Rule of Program Optimization (for experts only!): Don't do it yet.” - Michael A. Jackson

The vast majority of people do most things for irrational reasons. Choosing their OS is simply an example. Like with music: " what rocks" vs. "what sucks", people choose a camp and tend to stick with it regardless. I guess there's a subconsciousness level of being a member of an elite group thing going on. Luckily most of us (if you fall/fell into that trap) will/did grow out of the music thing with age. Too bad that doesn't seem to work for everything else.

I really love, for instance, the microsoft stole everything. That's awesome! If you really think so maybe try reading some ms research papers (publicly available kids). They really can't come up with anything new with chumps like multiple Turing Award and Fields winners. Never heard of Hugues Hoppe or Jim Blinn for instance? Then you have highly unsuccessfully companies like Valve just to show they hire incompetent people.

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